I'm playing Skyrim on the Playstation 3 .

I have a problem with getting rid of my bounty in Markarth , here's what happened :


First , i did the "Forsworn Conspiracy" and "No one escapes Cidhna Mine" quests , then i became Thane of Markarth .

After that , and some other misc. quests i found it time to move on to the Main Quest . At the meeting at High Hrothgar wih the

Stormcloaks and Empirials , i decided to swap Markarth for Riften , so Markarth became Stormcloak territory .

After ending the Main Quest , i sided with the Stormcloaks in the Civil War Quest , so when that was finished , Markarth obviously

stayed in Stormcloak hands .


Then i got the luminous idea to go for the Wanted Trophy ( 1000 gold bounty in each hold ) .

I got the trophy , but then the problems began : in the other holds you can get rid of the bounty in several ways ,

doing jail time / using your Thane "get away with 1 crime " option / paying gold ( using your Thieves Guild membership to pay less ) .


But in Markarth i was faced with the folowing : the Stormcloak Guards immediately stopped me the moment i entered Markath ,

accusing me of the murders from the " Forsworn Conspiracy " quest . They refused any of the above options for getting rid of my

bounty , leaving me only the " I'd rather die than go to jail " and the " I submit , take me to jail " options .

The "die" option isn't really helping , because either you die , load last save game and be faced with the same problem ,

or you slay a number of guards while escaping , raising the bounty .

The " I submit , take me to jail " option , while giving me no problems in other holds , is a big problem in Markarth , because ,

as the guards say : " you'll never see the sunlight again . no one escapes Cidhna Mine no one " . After the guard says that

hated line , what happens next ? The entire conversation is repeated again ...


This actually blocks the game , regarding any activity in Markarth , which is very annoying because both Dark Brotherhood and

Thieves Guild quest lines ( which i had not started yet ) at some point demand you to go to Markarth . I couldn't find a way to resolve

this problem , can anyone help me out ?




P.S. Starting a new game is a solution yes , but giving up a level 52 character , which took hours of gaming ( and way too many freezes )

to get , is not very appealing ...

Attack them and sheath your weapon, see if that helps

And just how is that helping ?!

You can use paycrimegold on PC, on consoles, start from an earlier save or a new game or just get used to killing lots of guards and wait for a patch.

(Had same issue on PC, console was the only way past it without loosing lots of time).

Starting a new game will be the only option then ? I feared as much , bye bye level 52 Dunmer ...

I have used the "take me to jail" response multiple times with the same guard before he finally gave up and walked away - and then the next guard starts. I ran away from that one, but it's a small possibility that you just have to wear them down. Like maybe they make you repeat it once for each person you killed or something. Sorry for your situation. There really ought to be some way for Bethesda to make fixes available for non-PC users, but then we have to suffer putting up with Steam

It may have been because I'd killed so many by that point but I tried the wearing down part 200 times, always thinking "just one more" (this is why I don't gamble). Didn't work for me.

Quest fixes are supposed to be on the way, perhaps hold out and pray?

When I already paid a bounty, yet the guards claimed I didn't, I attacked them, sheathed my sword, and it reset the bounty.

Markarth becomes a very very quiet place. It's a place I end up clearing out all of the guards on every entry. They're going to have to fix this or this is going to happen every single time. You can have fun doing it, too. Just go into one of the highest points in the city and fuss ro da groups of them into the lowest point of the city. In the morning the citizens will complain about people leaving things where one can trip over them. It's a great place to level up your block skills and your armor skills. Also your destruction skills. While you're there, make a trip into the Cidna Nines and kill the people there too. Alas that playtrough got bugged by the Companions quest bug.

I'm going to do the Forsworn Conspiracy as the last Markarth quest before the Civil War. Having to kill all the guards is a real pain. I'll have to check my achievement list to see what I need. If you have only the one option for Markarth... NEVER SHEATH YOUR WEAPON IN MARKARTH otherwise it's the Cidna Mines for you, and from what I understand the way out is broken.

i had to restart a game a while back cause somehow i got a save error and i had just deleted all my saves to clean the save list out, i never had a bad save before, i was abouut level 55 or so, it svcked, so i started over from level 1 and this time i'm making sure i have severela backup saves ALL the time, not just most of the time...so yeah it svcks, markarth is tricky anyway cause there does seem to be a buggy quest or two, especially foresowrn conspiracy...but i kill mardoch right away and so that seems to prevent a lot of the quest bugs related to that quest. i like markarth too much and live there so i wasn't gonna take any chances by going along with that idiot mardock. i hate the forsworn anyway and like takin em out.

My lvl 51 Battlemage hasn't been able to get near Markarth before going through the same thing with the guards. Hoping it gets fixed, but I suppose I can live with not going back there.

As Wyatt said earlier, attack the guards, then sheathe your weapons. Ive had the same the same thing as you happen to me many times, and this always works. Worst case, it doesnt work and you can just go back to killing them all. I wouldnt restart your game just for Markarth, although I personally hate Markarth and wouldn't trade 1000 iron daggers for it.

Thanks for the reply's . I've allready erased my savegame and started a new game .

In Oblivion i only had a problem with the " Vampire Cure " quest , as soon as i get the ingredients the witch needs , it goes horribly wrong ... she accepts the 1st ingredient ( the garlic , if i remember correctly ) , but despite me having the 2nd and 3rd ingredients in my inventory , she doesn't accept it . Even after starting a new game and trying again , this is the only quest in Oblivion that i couldn't finish at all . It made me not want to play as a vampire ever again ...